The Naval Academy on October 10, 1945, celebrated the hundredth year of its existence. Due to wartime conditions the ceremonies were simple but dignified and fitting for the occasion. On May 3, President Truman approved a Congressional resolution which created a United States Naval Academy Centennial Commission, made up of 15 members including himself, charged with the responsibility of formulating plans for the celebration.
The Naval Academy, the largest and most celebrated institution of its kind in the world today, has sent its graduates to serve in the five wars in which the nation has participated since its founding. In the Mexican War 90 Passed Midshipmen served who had just left the fostering care of the fledgling Naval School. Though the Naval Academy was but 16 years old when the Civil War broke out in 1861, about 350 of its graduates served in all grades up to lieutenant commander, and a few reached the grade of commander a month before Appomattox. In the Spanish-American War, in the first World War, and in the second World War every officer of flag rank was an Academy graduate. Its graduates include world-famous names such as Dewey, Sampson, Schley, Sims, Rodman, King, Nimitz, Halsey, Mitscher, Spruance, Hewitt, Kirk, Oldendorf, Kinkaid, and Turner. Its graduates have explored the arctic, the Antarctic, and the far reaches of the Pacific; they have made the Stars and Stripes known and respected on the Seven Seas of the world.
Many of its graduates who have returned to civil life have distinguished themselves in business, industry, science, literature, and public life. Perhaps the most famous of all its graduates in the world of literature is Winston Churchill, of the Class of 1894, author of novels like Richard Carvel, The Crisis, Coniston, and other books depicting American life. The Academy's most famous scientist is undoubtedly A. A. Michelson of the Class of 1873 who by meticulous experiment determined the velocity of light while he was an Ensign on duty at the Academy. Its most famous inventor is probably Frank J. Sprague of the Class of 1878 who built the first successful trolley car in the United States. The list of Academy graduates who have made significant contributions to the life of the nation could be almost indefinitely prolonged if space permitted. But the Naval Academy's greatest glory is its thousands of graduates of whom the country rarely hears, officers who have fought our ships on every sea, facing death in every form every minute of every day, always mindful of the call of duty. These unsung heroes are the backbone of our fleet.
This hundred years of the Academy's existence has been a century of incredible change in almost every phase of human life. When the first Superintendent gave his address to the assembled midshipmen, October 10, 1845, there was not a telephone, a radio, an airplane, an automobile, or even a trolley car in the entire country. A man who had lived in Shakespeare's day would have felt more at home in the Annapolis of 1845 than would an Annapolitan of 1845 in the world of today. And a seaman of the Spanish Armada would have felt more at home on a sailing ship of our Navy in 1845 than would an American bluejacket of 1845 in a modern destroyer. In that year our Navy possessed just 76 ships, 8 of them steamers, not an armored ship in the lot. A single one of our modern destroyers, let us say of the 2,100-ton Fletcher class, with its 5-inch guns, could have blown our entire fleet of 1845 out of the water in a couple of hours, if that fleet could have been assembled within range. The displacement of just two of our Iowa class battleships would about equal the combined tonnage of these 76 ships. Today our fleet includes 26 of the most powerful battleships in the world, with aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, and submarines to make it by far the greatest fleet in the world's history, equipped with the most intricate machinery that the brain of man can devise. It has been the business of the Academy's graduates to keep step with this world of change. In naval developments these men have kept our Navy abreast or a little ahead of the navies of our enemies real or potential, and the navies of our friends as well.
Fifty-six years elapsed between the inauguration of George Washington as our first President and the founding of the Naval Academy; and forty-eight years were to pass after the launching of the Navy's first ship before Annapolis became the seat of American naval education. In those formative years of our country's history eleven different men were inaugurated as President and three different wars were fought in which the Navy participated. This "Golden Age" of our Navy gave birth to such gallant figures as Stephen Decatur, David Porter, Thomas Truxtun, Oliver Hazard Perry, John Rodgers, and others like them. These men gave our Navy an inspiration and a tradition which has been carried on by their successors and still lives today. A Navy without such a tradition disintegrates under stress of hardship and disaster. Witness the debacle of the German Navy in 1918 and again in 1945.
This period saw many efforts made by Presidents, Secretaries of the Navy, Congressmen, naval officers, and private citizens to improve the system of education of the Navy's junior officers. The first of such proposals was made by President John Adams who transmitted to Congress on January 14, 1800, a plan drawn up by James McHenry, his Secretary of War. This plan provided for a military academy, one division of which should be called a "School of the Navy" where all future naval officers should be trained. Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams also made proposals for some better system of naval education.
Improvements in the system came gradually as do most things worthwhile. The Navy regulations of 1802 instructed the ships' commanders to see that the "schoolmasters" performed their duty toward the midshipmen by "diligently and faithfully instructing them in those sciences appertaining to their department." As no schoolmasters had been provided by Congress, the 1802 regulations provided that the chaplain should perform the duties of schoolmaster. In 1813 Congress provided that every ship-of-the-line (huge sailing ships armed with 60 to 100 guns) should have a schoolmaster on board who should be charged with the education of the midshipmen assigned to that ship. By 1831 it was provided that no vessel the size of a sloop-of-war or upwards should sail without a schoolmaster on board, if one could be had, to instruct the midshipmen.
As early as 1803 a school for midshipmen was established under the direction of Chaplain Robert Thompson at the Washington Navy Yard. Here he gave courses in mathematics and navigation. Thompson continued on this duty until 1810, gradually extending the system until it embraced the New York, Philadelphia, and Norfolk Navy Yards. Midshipmen might attend these schools if they were interested. Most of them were not interested except insofar as these schools provided short courses to prepare for examinations for promotions. They wanted the exact amount of culture that would enable them to pass their examinations, and no more. This instruction on shipboard and ashore, due to the interruptions incident to naval life, was incomplete and intermittent though it did produce some outstanding naval officers.
A more ambitious scheme of education was put forward in 1839 when a school for midshipmen was established at the old Naval Asylum in Philadelphia. Midshipmen, all of whom had seen service at sea, were ordered to attend this school. And for six years this school gave regular courses of eight months each to midshipmen who were sent here to prepare for their promotion examinations for Passed Midshipmen (a grade equivalent the present Navy grade of Ensign). To this school in 1842 came a young Yale graduate only 22 years of age. This young man, William Chauvenet, was not only a brilliant mathematician and astronomer but also a capable, gifted teacher. He drew up a plan for a two-year course for the school which was approved by the Secretary of the Navy but was rejected by his successor. To this school also came as instructors two able teachers, Lieutenant James H. Ward of the Navy, an expert in naval gunnery and in naval tactics, and Henry H. Lockwood, a graduate of West Point.
The same year that Chauvenet came to the Philadelphia School, a Corps of Engineers was established in the Navy. This was the first definite recognition by law of the important part that steam was destined to play in the fate of navies and nations in the years ahead. Perhaps no other single factor played so large a part in the final establishment of a definite system for training naval officers ashore as the introduction of steam as a propulsive power for ships. No longer could it be argued that a midshipman could acquire aboard ship all he should ever need to know to make him a competent naval officer.
Three years later, on March 11, 1845, when James K. Polk was inaugurated the eleventh President of the United States, he invited George Bancroft, a distinguished New England philosopher, historian, and diplomat, to sit in his cabinet as his Secretary of the Navy. On May 1, seven weeks after his appointment, he addressed duplicate letters to four instructors at the Philadelphia Naval School regarding the nature of their duties. Since it is his first letter in the archives of the Navy Department on the subject of naval education it seems worth quoting verbatim here:
Sir, I request that you will report to me the nature of the duties performed by you at the Naval School during the last year, the number of hours you have been employed daily, the number of students employed by you during that period, and also offer any suggestions for the improvement of the school which may seem to you advisable.
I am respy Your Obdt. Servant
GEO. BANCROFT
If one man can be singled out who contributed most to the establishment of the Naval Academy, that man is George Bancroft. He conciliated the older and younger elements of the Navy who could not agree as to whether midshipmen should be educated on shipboard or ashore and by June 6 had his plans so far advanced for a naval school that he felt ready to choose its site. To the Secretary of War on this day he wrote that a suitable place must be chosen with "the smallest expenditure of the public funds. From what I can learn of the position and accommodation of Fort Severn at Annapolis, I am inclined to think that that post would be a very suitable location." He then definitely asked Marcy for his co-operation in effecting a transfer of the post to the Navy. On the back of this brief letter is a still briefer endorsement in Marcy's hand: "I assent to the transfer 5 Aug. '45. W. L. Marcy." On June 13 Bancroft wrote to President Polk on the same subject. After outlining his proposal and the steps thus far taken he closed with: "I have the honor to solicit your authority for such transfer if the plan meets your approbation." Pasted on the back of the original of this letter of June 13 is an endorsement, apparently in Polk's handwriting. The endorsement is written on a small piece of yellow paper on which is printed in script: "The President of the United States." Polk's endorsement reads: "Secretary of the Navy. Proposing a transfer of Fort Severn from the Military to the Naval Service of the United States. No objection is perceived to the proposed transfer, the Secretary of War consenting thereto. June 16, 1845." By this very brief and simple exchange of correspondence the site was acquired for the greatest naval school on earth, and one will search in vain for any Act of Congress establishing the School. On August 15, 1845, the Adjutant General's Office in General Orders, No. 40, formally ordered Brevet Major J. L. Gardner, 4th Artillery, the Commanding Officer at Fort Severn, to transfer the fort to Commander Franklin Buchanan who had been designated by the Navy Department to take over the fort. But early in July, before Marcy had given his final consent, both he and Bancroft accompanied by Commodore Lewis Warrington visited Annapolis and accompanied by Major Gardner inspected the fort.
Bancroft now assembled a corps of instructors for his infant school. He chose Commander Franklin Buchanan, a stern disciplinarian and an educated and efficient officer, as the school's first Superintendent; to assist Buchanan, seven men were selected, three of whom, Lieut. James H. Ward, Professor William Chauvenet, and Professor Henry H. Lockwood, had made good records for themselves as instructors at the Philadelphia School. The others were Arsene N. Girault, instructor in French, Chaplain George Jones, instructor in English, Surgeon John A. Lockwood, instructor in Chemistry, and Passed Midshipman Samuel Marcy, assistant instructor in mathematics. Passed Midshipman Marcy, the son of the Secretary of War, was then ordered to proceed to West Point to inspect the system of training used at West Point and to make a full report on the Military Academy's curriculum. This report, signed by Marcy, and dated July 18, 1845, is now in the Museum of the Naval Academy.
The ceremonies by which the Naval School (it was not officially known as the U. S. Naval Academy until July 1, 1850) was formally opened were brief and simple. On Friday morning, October 10, 1845, at eleven o'clock the Superintendent assembled the officers, instructors, and midshipmen in one of the classrooms, read a letter from the Secretary of the Navy, and gave a brief address outlining the purpose for which the school was founded. Classes started at once. There were between fifty and sixty midshipmen in attendance. These students were formed into two classes: midshipmen who had never been to sea formed the junior class, or Youngsters; and midshipmen who had been to sea with but one year to go before taking their promotion examinations for Passed Midshipmen formed the senior class or Oldsters. The Youngsters were known officially as "Acting Midshipmen." To Cyrus H. Oakley, of New York, an acting midshipman, came the dubious honor of being the Naval Academy's first bilger who was "returned to his friends" on October 13. Mr. Oakley was but the first of a very long line of youths who sought a naval career and were thwarted in their desires by Academy officials who insisted on certain minimum standards of scholastic achievement.
In the Academy's early days smoking and card-playing were strictly taboo and no one thought it necessary to give these spirited youths a normal outlet for their exuberant spirits by providing athletic amusements. It was plainly up to the midshipmen to find such an outlet—to the detriment of the nerves of the Academic Board, the Superintendent, and the Commandant. They organized "supper clubs" which operated until all hours of the night. The nocturnal revels of the "Owls" and the "Crickets" stirred Annapolis to its very depths. They "frenched out" by scaling the walls, and rendezvousing at a popular saloon; the midshipmen inhabiting the "Abbey," a building close to the north wall, were, however, notably quiet and well-behaved. But one night the Office of the Day entered the Abbey only to find it deserted. Its residents had found an intriguing tunnel under the wall in the basement and were using it to "french" out.
But they had some social diversions. In January, 1846, they held a naval ball in the Lyceum above the mess hall. They organized a theatrical company and in the spring of 1846 gave a play, "The Lady of Lyons" by Bulwer-Lytton. This play was given in a theater on Duke of Gloucester Street, shortly after purchased by the Presbyterian Church for their house of worship.
When the Civil War broke out, the Superintendent, Captain George S. Blake, with the approval of the Secretary of the Navy, removed the school to Newport, Rhode Island, where it remained during the four years of the war. The Navy Department rented a summer hotel known as the Atlantic House where the upper classes of midshipmen were quartered, the Plebes being housed on the Constitution anchored in the harbor of Newport. The Naval Academy grounds were taken over by the Army where a base hospital was established. This hospital took care of thousands of wounded troops returned from the battlefields of Virginia.
The outbreak of the Civil War 16 years after the official opening of the Naval School by Commander Buchanan found the Academy in a vastly improved situation. A four-year course was required of its students with practice cruises each summer. These students now came direct to the Academy from civil life and bore the cumbersome title of "Acting Midshipmen on probation at the Naval Academy." But the exigencies of war forced Congress to change this to "Midshipmen" in 1862. As "Acting Midshipmen" their status if captured in a practice ship by the Confederates was dubious. But the cartel or exchange value of a midshipman was definitely fixed, at that time, as equal to seven ordinary seamen or seven Army or Marine privates. By this same act of 1862 the grade of Passed Midshipman was abolished and the grade of Ensign substituted, a grade made equal to that of a Second Lieutenant in the Army or Marine Corps.
With the return of the Naval Academy from Newport on September 11, 1865, Vice Admiral David Dixon Porter, one of the outstanding Federal naval officers of the Civil War, took over as Superintendent. He modernized the curriculum, introduced new courses, brought in able young officers with war experience as instructors, cleaned up the grounds from the ravages made by the Army, constructed several new buildings, and introduced baseball, rowing, and other sports, affording the midshipmen the chance for athletic development that they long had needed. He so encouraged the Academy's social life that the newspaper wags of the period labeled the school "Porter's Dancing Academy."
Instead of being content with the simple graduation ceremonies of the past, he made the week of graduation a season of festivity with dances, parades, athletic events, and even introduced the competition for the company flag. Under his direction June Week became a week ever to be remembered in the life of the graduate, just as it is to this day. His force and energy gave new life to the school and most of his innovations are today standard procedure at the Academy.
For many years after the Civil War the Navy was moribund, the country not being interested in the Navy as a means of national defense in the piping times of peace. But under President Arthur the White Squadron was authorized and by the year 1898, when we went to war with Spain, we had a respectable naval force for that period. By June, 1897, 2,307 men had been graduated from the institution.
The short war with Spain had little effect on the Academy except that Admiral Cervera, the commander of the Spanish fleet destroyed at Santiago, with his officers were brought to the Academy as prisoners-of-war where they were quartered on what was then called Buchanan Row. They gave their parole not to leave the city but could go where they wished within the city's limits. They proved to be charming gentlemen and the city took great delight in feasting these most honorable foemen. After the conclusion of hostilities they left for their homes in Spain taking with them the good will of everyone.
During World War I the course was shortened to three years and the Naval Academy opened its doors to officers of the U. S. Naval Reserve who were given short courses in navigation, gunnery, seamanship, electrical and marine engineering, and Navy regulations and customs. During the course of the war the Academy supplied 2,569 Reserves for the naval service. In World War II the course was again shortened to three years and Reserve Midshipmen were again trained at the Academy. Since 1940, 4,138 regular midshipmen and 3,311 Reserve Midshipmen have been commissioned in the Navy and Marine Corps.
Over the years the midshipmen have developed a language of their own which would bewilder the chance visitor. His girl who comes to Annapolis for a Saturday night hop is his "drag," and if he is off with his girl for an afternoon's frolic he is "draggin'." Annapolis City is Crabtown and a girl who is a resident of the city is a "crab." A dignified member of the faculty possessed of a charming daughter who frequently entertained midshipmen friends was a guest at a midshipmen's banquet. He was startled to hear himself introduced in a most respectful manner by the toastmaster as "The Father of a well-known Annapolis crab." If a midshipman's name goes on the delinquency report for some midshipman sin, not necessarily connoting moral turpitutde of any sort, he has been "fried" or "papped." If he should be so unfortunate as to go to sleep in the section room he "flaked out." The excellent food supplied him by the Commissary Department also comes in for strange appellations. Jello with whipped cream is "Shiverin' Liz in a snow storm," griddle cakes are "Collision mats," and stew, however good, is "slum" or "the mess cooks' holiday." If his passing mark is 2.5 or better, he is "sat," and if below he is "unsat." "Skinny" is the course given in Chemistry and Physics and the courses given by the dignified Department of English, History, and Government are affectionately and collectively known as "bull." Even the Superintendent is not let off. His title is shortened by his youthful midshipmen charges to "Supe," but obviously not in that gentleman's presence.
Fighting is forbidden but at times tempers flare and such rules are forgotten. It is also forbidden to prevaricate in the slightest degree. A midshipman with a black eye and a general dilapidated appearance sought the doctor in the Sick Bay. "What happened to you?" queried the genial doctor. "I might have run into a post," came the unexpected reply. "Come right in," said the man of medicine, "the post is here already." Talking in ranks is also forbidden. An officer queried a midshipman, "Did I just hear you talking in ranks?" "I sincerely hope not, sir." After a dubious recitation in Skinny a midshipman approached his instructor, "Do you think I deserved swabo for that recitation?" "No," his instructor replied, "but that is the lowest mark we give."
The officials of the Academy have often been criticized for not adding this or that new-fangled course to the curriculum. Sometimes men graduate from the Academy with no thought of making the Navy their career and resign at the first possible opportunity to take up civilian pursuits. A few of these men have complained that the Academy did not give them a "liberal" education. The answer to this criticism is simple and boiled down to its essence amounts to this:
The objective of Naval Academy education is twofold; first, to give a broad but functional basic and professional education on which the graduate may found his further study and training as a naval officer; second, to produce graduates capable of becoming efficient junior officers aboard ship in the shortest possible time.—(From the report of the Special Curriculum Committee appointed November, 1943, by the Superintendent, Rear Admiral John R. Beardall.)
If the complainant wanted an education in the classics or the fine arts he simply chose the wrong place
But sometimes a bit of praise comes from a wholly unexpected source. The personnel manager of a large industrial concern in a near-by city had many requests for employment from Academy graduates who were forced to resign from the naval service because of impaired eyesight or some other physical defect. He had this to say of the product:
There is one institution of higher learning in this country that has done more to solve this problem of personal development in its undergraduates than any I have encountered. Our proximity to Annapolis makes our office one of the first places to which prospective young naval graduates, who will not be commissioned because of failure to meet physical standards, turn when they learn that they will not be able to pursue their naval careers. I think I can say almost without exception, that these young men present a better front to the employer than the graduates of any other institution. They are poised, confident, assured, and courteous; they have that attitude of definite purpose which is a prized asset to a man in any walk of life.